Bird of Chaos: Book One of the Harpy's Curse

by Susie Mander

  Book One of The Harpy’s Curse

  SUSIE MANDER

  Crooked Keep

  90 Pitt Street, Sydney 2000

  www.crookedkeep.com

  Copyright © 2014 by Susie Mander

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the permission of the publishers.

  ISBN: 978-1-291-90690-5

  Edited by Line Creative, Sydney, Australia

  Printed by Lulu in the UK, USA, France and Australia

  Thanks

  Thanks to my patrons Sandy and Paul Mander and Scott Middleton. Thanks also to Adric and Sue Middleton for reading and re-reading my manuscript both forwards and backwards and to my editor Kate O’Donnell of Line Creative.

  Table of Contents

  Part One

  Chapter one

  Chapter two

  Chapter three

  Chapter four

  Chapter five

  Chapter six

  Chapter seven

  Part two

  Chapter eight

  Chapter nine

  Chapter ten

  Chapter eleven

  Chapter twelve

  Chapter thirteen

  Part three

  Chapter fourteen

  Chapter fifteen

  Chapter sixteen

  Chapter seventeen

  Chapter eighteen

  Chapter nineteen

  Chapter twenty

  Chapter twenty-one

  Chapter twenty-two

  Chapter twenty-three

  Keep in touch

  About the author

  Sneak Peek: Book Two of the Harpy’s Curse

  Part one

  Chapter one

  “Verne Golding the Third!” calls my mother, Queen Ashaylah the Fifth, from the balcony of the Royal Apartments. Her golden crown, fashioned into the image of a snake eating its own tail, glistens in the dying boedromion sun. Her hair is dark like mine. Her skin is eggshell: pure white but lined with miniscule fissures. She has no reason to doubt her absolute authority — you can hear that in her voice. “Insufferable child. Anyone would think you were five years old.”

  I simmer.

  For too long I have tried to reconcile my conflicting selves like two pieces of rope I must tie together. At one end is my defiant self, the part of me that “will not stand for this!” On the other end is the part of me that must conform, the part of me that wants to be liked: my small self. For much of my life my small self and my defiant self have fought with one another, pulling on their ropes, threatening to topple me. No longer. I will not let my small self get the better of me.

  “What is it, Mother?”

  How can I write about my mother when she is so much a part of me and I a part of her? Whatever I say is an inadequate description of our tumultuous relationship. What can I say with any certainty? Nothing. The answer is always nothing. As each word is committed to parchment it must be taken back. Still, there are some things that come close to the truth: my mother clings to her title like a drowning sailor to the edge of a boat. She was once kind but jealousy made her cruel. She is stealing my gift.

  “Come here now.”

  I have a vision of my mother toppling over the banister. It is not the first vision of its type. I often see sequences of disasters, hardly prophetic but disturbing nonetheless. This is how I know it is my destiny to destroy everything. I am primed for chaos.

  “Hurry up!”

  I pass beneath the arch into the dazzling white Tibutan Gold Marble hall with Bolt, my albino war-wit. His name was given to him as a child when he was sold to us by slavers from the Spice Isles. Like most slaves from Isbis he is larger than any Tibutan and more disciplined. With no tongue he cannot speak so communicates using a stunted sign language. His brow is almost permanently furrowed—he takes the responsibility of protecting me very seriously—and on his bare chest is the trefoil knot, the sign of the indentured. It is my belief that he wants nothing more than to run away with my best friend, Harryet.

  We hurry past the red limestone columns decorated with gold leaf, past the large gold bowl raised on a pedestal where visitors can wash their hands, and up the left staircase, a curling fern frond up to a long hall leading to my mother’s wing. We pass an obsidian mirror and I glance at my reflection. I lick my hand and try to smooth my short dark hair, which juts out at unruly angles, and try to brush the mud from my training uniform.

  Attendants, silent men wearing roughspun uniforms, scuttle through the hallways lighting torches along the walls as dusk extinguishes the flame of day. Hearing us approach, my mother’s war-wits salute. Like all war-wits Adamon and Pherenike never sleep but rest on their feet with their eyes open. Adamon adjusts the quiver of Isbian poison darts slung over his shoulder and tucks his white hair beneath his ear. His brother, Pherenike, or Nike for short, smiles, making the tribal tattoos on his brow and around his mouth ripple. As I pass, I glance at the harpe on Nike’s hip. I have seen him draw the curved blade only once. The steel is engraved with the sun of the Salt Kingdom and it hums as it comes out of the sheath.

  I relinquish my helmet with its phallic tusk and my twin blades: Eunike the blade for victory and Paideuo the disciplinarian. “Mother?” I say, entering the dark solar. I bite the inside of my cheek: rage threatens to burst from my chest.

  A dark figure stands with her back to me looking out over the palace through an alcove window and for a moment I am reminded of the woman of my childhood. I want to reach out and touch her, to go over the remnants of our relationship the way one might sift through an old trunk dusting each heirloom off and remembering it with far more fondness than any inanimate object deserves.

  But the sound of a man clearing his throat destroys any hope of reconciliation. Piebald, my mother’s most trusted assistant, sits on a three-legged stool in the corner. Like many of those in my mother’s service he has adopted an attitude of defiant superiority forgetting he is as disposable as a dishcloth.

  I sit on the edge of a velvet kline, its sloping headboard intricately decorated with the Tibutan serpent in gold and black. When my mother turns, I see a smudge of blood on the hem of her dress. She has not changed since the morning’s execution. She shakes her head slowly. “Verne, Verne, Verne. Tibuta is burning. My Tibuta, and yet you vex me with your disobedience. I have more important things to think about than your little visits to the high priestess.”

  I say as little as possible—“I had to stay the night. I got caught in the storm.”—because to speak would reveal my fury. You are stealing my gift, I want to scream but do not. I must consider my next move.

  “I told you, your majesty. She cannot be trusted,” Piebald says.

  My mother ignores him and turns to look out over the lacy gardens, each one a little open hole surrounded by looped or braided thread. “The Shark’s Teeth are going to rip us apart. They fear this unusual weather is Typhon’s fifth and last tempest. As if such a thing is possible. And here you are, publicly defying me.”

  “But what if this tempest has escaped the bounds of the compass? What if it can roam Longfield as it pleases?”

  “Honestly—” Piebald starts.

  “Typhon’s Tempest?” my mother interrupts. “Please, Verne. Don’t be absurd. It is unorthodox. Conjecture. Anyone with half a brain knows it’s no more than an old myth from the mainland.”

  Piebald puffs out his chest. “Rebels concocted the whole thing to foster power that would otherwise elude them.”

  “People believe in Typhon’s Tempest becau
se they need fear to motivate them. The temple is intent on making us doubt our true potential so they can control us,” my mother says.

  “But the Shark’s Teeth are a real threat and if we fail to recognise their concerns—”

  “Are you suggesting the Shark’s Teeth are right?” Piebald says.

  “No, that is treason,” I say, exasperated. If I can convince Mother that the Tempest is real, that she should work with the Shark’s Teeth, that she ought to permit me to assume my rightful position, then perhaps, just perhaps I will not have to kill her. I stand. “Mother, I simply want you to consider the possibility that you are wrong.”

  My mother shakes her head. “If you had read as widely as I then you would know that the very book Maud uses to justify this conspiracy warns us, Be wary of those who seek to captivate us with philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elements of Longfield and not according to the gods’ will. You assume, based on unsubstantiated writings, that we face annihilation. I have been on the throne long enough to know that Tibuta’s Seawall is secure. Nothing can harm us.”

  “It is easy to overlook the bigger picture, to be distracted by domestic issues. The Tempest is inconvenient, yes, but it is the truth,” I say.

  “Fool! Maud Lias is a treasonous witch,” she says, walking to the far end of the room to light a bronze oil lamp on a three-legged table. She removes flint and fire steel from a canister.

  I open and close my fist. “You only say that because she is gaining support.”

  “You want—” she strikes flint against steel “—our house—” she strikes again “—to fall?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then show some loyalty.”

  “Majesty, I have always been loyal to you,” Piebald says but my mother is not listening. She brings the char cloth to the tinder. “Growing up away from the palace was the best thing that ever happened to me. I have often thought it would have been better to send you away.”

  I have heard this before. You see, my mother and her younger siblings, Kratos and Aria, were sent to Lizard Island to keep them safe after my aunt Tansy was killed in the year 2960 AB, after the birth of the First Mother in the Tibutan reckoning. Tansy was the heir apparent and she mysteriously fell from the Wall when she was twelve. Aunt Evada remained in Tibuta to study with Maud but she, too, died mysteriously—poisoned—aged seventeen. Many believed my grandmother, Queen Ligeia, murdered them both. Whatever the case, Lizard Island is my mother’s favourite threat.

  My mother returns the equipment and wipes her hands on a silk cloth. “Having failed with Evada the high priestess has moved onto you.”

  I glare at her. “Who knows, Mother? Perhaps she has good reason.”

  Ashaylah looks at me for a long time and I wonder if she can tell that I have discovered her guilt. “I doubt it,” she says, looking away. “If you were going to be a Talent there would be a sign by now. Perhaps you are empty inside. I do not want that woman giving you false hope. I forbid you to see her.”

  I inwardly sigh. This is not the first thing she has forbidden. In fact, she has grown quite fond of flexing her monarchical muscles. Some years ago she forbade congregations of more than five people; she forbade the gerousia, the council of elder women, and banished the ephors who oversaw their work; she forbade people from speaking her name in vain, from loitering after dark, from traveling to Kratos’s Haven or even mentioning my uncle. But I remember a time when my mother was more likely to listen and less likely to take offence, a time when she laughed and could relax, probably because she was confident in her position. A time before my uncle Kratos washed up on Tibuta’s Seawall and started preaching about the Tempest.

  “Mother, be reasonable,” I say, considering the woman who stands before me. I miss the one I knew as my mother.

  “Do not tell me what is and is not reasonable,” she snaps. “You think the enemies I see are fanciful?” Her voice rises an octave with each question. “You think I am no longer fit to rule? Do you honestly think you can judge the high priestess better than I?” Pressure builds like a kettle. Soon comes the whistle to indicate it has boiled: “Eeee!”

  “Mother—”

  “You foolish girl. You insufferable, silly, pathetic… Eeee!”

  “Majesty, please,” Piebald says.

  Her hands are clenched beside her and spit flies from her mouth. The veins on her face strain against her red skin. Her words burst out of her in a torrent, “You will never get the throne. Not when you are so disobedient. Not like this. Nike!” She turns away to hide her tears.

  I say nothing. To ask why she is crying would break the rules that govern our relationship. “I am not crying,” she would snap or, worse, “If I am crying then it is your fault.” So, I take the coward’s path and pretend I have not noticed.

  “Nike!” my mother calls. “Nike!” The war-wit enters. “Put her in the Seawall.”

  Nike glances at me then at my mother and, in his eyes, which are lined with ink dots and swirls of mossy green, I see doubt. I too doubt. I doubt my mother’s ability to rule. I doubt her grasp on reality. I know she must step aside soon; it is Tibutan law. She need only relinquish her position and formally name me as her successor and I could take the throne. Yet she will not. Her excuse is that I am defective, a broken toy. The truth is I am a threat and she has no intention of fixing me. She means to throw me away before I can replace her. Before I can become the messiah. But things weren’t always like this. There was a time when my mother and I were almost friends, a time when memories were made in vibrant colours, histories told in elevated voices and bad things quickly brushed aside.

  In the beginning, when I was five or so, the light was brighter, the sky was bluer and my cheeks ached from smiling. My mother was happier and she often sang when she thought no one was listening. I loved her floral scent whenever I buried my face in her hair, the smoothness of her skin when she stroked my cheek, and the breadth of her smile.

  I remember when she heard that a serpent had been spotted on the Island of the Dead. She was delighted in a way I have not seen since, the way only the young and cheerfully ambitious can be. She clapped her hands and skittered about her study like a finch. “Verne, just think of it. Drayk need not be the only immortal. I’ll have a serpent stone of my very own and no one will ever hurt me.” She knelt so we were level. Her eyes shone with glee. “You will come with me. I want you to be there when we find it. It will be my stone and I will pass it on to you.”

  Our trireme reached the Island of the Dead at sunset. The island was shaped like a crescent, and light reflected off the cliffs around the edge. The granite thrust into the air in wedges so smooth they might have been carved with a knife. Ancient sepulchral portals penetrated the cliff face and peered out at us like eyes. Inside were the bones of an ancient race of Caspians who had occupied Tibuta before Ayfra brought our people across from the mainland.

  A tender ferried us to shore. My mother, Nike, Adamon and I climbed the stairs to stand on the seawall in the setting sun and await a Caspian man in a long red robe who appeared through a dark grove of cypress trees with a small white kylon by his side. He was the island’s only occupant, a caretaker sent here by the King of Caspius to ensure none of the ancient tombs were pillaged. The man’s face was the cracked speckled red earth of a drought. His beard was a wiry tangle of grey and white. He greeted my mother by kissing her ring. “Your majesty, what a pleasure to see you after all these years—”

  My mother cut him short. “You say you saw a serpent?”

  The man inclined his head. It was a slow, calculated movement. “In my garden.”

  “Show me.” Her hand was tight around mine.

  We followed him along a path that led through the cool shade of the cypress trees. The man’s white hound ran ahead sniffing the ground. I could sense my mother’s impatience. She was like a child at the start of a race, crouched down on the block, trying desperately to avoid a false start. We reached a pa
ved enclosure overhung with grape vines where a stream trickled into an elevated pond. The man disappeared into a whitewashed brick building. “I’ll make tea,” he called from inside.

  “Thank you but I would really like to see the serpent,” my mother said.

  The caretaker reappeared in the doorway carrying something in his hand. I had a vision. For a moment I saw him cackling, his teeth bloodied from where he has bitten off his own tongue. The Island of the Dead was burning. I blinked and the vision was gone.

  “If you are in a hurry then I suppose you better follow me,” he said.

  At the back of the house were the remnants of an oil press: a stained circular plinth and a rusted iron crank. Behind was a grassy terrace where goats grazed, their feet tethered, bells around their necks. Beyond were row upon row of olive trees. We climbed the terrace and walked through the olive grove to a sandy clearing. The caretaker placed a piece of meat on a large, smooth boulder then stood back. “Wait quietly. It will come,” he whispered.

  The war-wits stood at a distance, their faces expressionless, and their hands hovering above their weapons. My mother took up a position on another boulder, beckoned to me and let me crawl into her lap. She wrapped me in her arms and rested her chin on my head. I could smell her excitement and the wild thyme growing in the olive grove. I heard bees somewhere further off.

  A rustling in the bushes made us turn and straighten. I gripped the hem of my mother’s peplos and stuck it into my mouth. The war-wits drew their swords. A pointed head appeared from beneath the bushes, followed by two powerful limbs jutting out of an equally powerful squat body covered in thick armour. Spikes ran from the creature’s head to its tail. The serpent scuttled hesitantly towards the boulder and I squealed. The thing climbed the boulder, stood over the piece of meat and looked around. Its tongue probed the air before it snatched the morsel into its mouth and scurried back down the rock.

  My mother picked me up under the arms and placed me on the pebbly ground. “That’s not a serpent.”